Posted on Monday, January 19, 2015

Soul Mates: Dr. Martin Luther Jr. & Coretta Scott King…repost…

Editor’s Note: This post is from 2011, but I always love a good love story…Read and enjoy…Happy MLK Day 2015!!!

Hello World,

As you know, I love to write about love and marriage. In fact, I have dedicated a whole section on my blog to married couples, Soul Mates. While I know that many people do not believe in soul mates, I would like to believe that God has a hand in orchestrating great love stories that end in marriage. Today, we officially celebrate the life and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But from Dr. King to President Obama, their wives had a hand in making them great men. While I will never get the opportunity to interview Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, I still want to feature their story on my blog. So I have decided to post interesting quotations about their marriage. Read, enjoy and take note…

Born and raised in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin. While in Boston she met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953, and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, Alabama, with Coretta Scott King assuming the many functions of pastor’s wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. (from The King Center website)
While studying music, she met King, then pursuing a PhD at Boston University. “…he was looking for a wife. I wasn’t looking for a husband, but he was a wonderful human being,” she told an interviewer. “I still resisted his overtures, but after he persisted, I had to pray about it…I had a dream, and in that dream, I was made to feel that I should allow myself to be open and stop fighting the relationship. That’s what I did, and of course the rest is history. ” (from About.com)
Martin, about their first date: “So you can do something else besides sing? You’ve got a good mind also. You have everything I ever wanted in a woman. We ought to get married someday.” (from About.com)
She was studying music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1952 when she met a young graduate student in philosophy, who on their first date told her: “The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all.” A year later, she and Dr. King, then a young minister from a prominent Atlanta family, were married, beginning a remarkable partnership that ended with his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. (from The New York Times)
Her first encounter with the man who would become her husband did not begin auspiciously, as recounted in “Parting the Waters,” by Taylor Branch. Dr. King, very much in the market for a wife, called her after getting her name from a friend and announced: “You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo,” he said. “I’m like Napoleon. I’m at my Waterloo, and I’m on my knees.” Ms. Scott, two years his elder, replied: “That’s absurd. You don’t even know me.” (from The New York Times)
Still, she agreed to meet for lunch the next day, only to be put off initially that he was not taller. But she was impressed by his erudition and confidence, and he saw in this refined, intelligent woman what he was looking for as the wife of a preacher from one of Atlanta’s most prominent ministerial families. When he proposed, she deliberated for six months before saying yes, and they were married in the garden of her parents’ house on June 18, 1953. The 350 guests, elegant big-city folks from Atlanta and rural neighbors from Alabama, made it the biggest wedding, white or black, the area had ever seen. (from The New York Times)
Even before the wedding, she made it clear she intended to remain her own woman. She stunned Dr. King’s father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., who presided over the wedding, by demanding that the promise to obey her husband be removed from the wedding vows. Reluctantly, he went along. After it was over, the bridegroom fell asleep in the car on the way back to Atlanta while the new Mrs. King did the driving. (from The New York Times)
“I had no problem being the wife of Martin, but I was never just a wife. In the 1950s, as a concert singer, I performed ‘freedom concerts’ raising funds for the movement. I ran my household, raised my children, and spoke out on world issues. Maybe people didn’t know that I was always an activist because the media wasn’t watching. I once told Martin that although I loved being his wife and a mother, if that was all I did I would have gone crazy. I felt a calling on my life from an early age. I knew I had something to contribute to the world.” (from The Washington Post)
The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007) (October 23, 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama), Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King (January 30, 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia), Bernice Albertine King (March 28, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia) All four children later followed in their parents’ footsteps as civil rights activists. (from Wikipedia)
Scott King became an activist in her own right, as well, carrying messages of international peace and economic justice to organizations around the world. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard University and the first woman to preach during a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. When King was assassinated outside a motel room in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, Scott King channeled her grief into action. Days later, she led a march through the streets of Memphis, and later that year took his place as a leader of the Poor People’s March in Washington, D.C. (from ABC News)
And to carry on that legacy, she focused on two ambitious and daunting tasks. The first was to have a national holiday in his honor, the second was to build a nationally recognized center in Atlanta to honor his memory, continue his work and provide a research center for scholars studying his work and the civil rights era. The first goal was achieved despite much opposition in 1983 when Congress approved a measure designating the third Monday in January as an official federal holiday in honor of Dr. King, who was born in Atlanta Jan. 15, 1929. (from The Washington Post)
Over 14,000 people gathered for Coretta Scott King’s eight-hour funeral at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on February 7, 2006 where daughter Bernice King eulogized her mother. The megachurch, whose sanctuary seats 10,000, was better able to handle the expected massive crowds than Ebenezer Baptist Church, of which Coretta was a member since the early 1960s and which was the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral in 1968. (from Wikipedia)

Any thoughts?

Posted on Wednesday, January 7, 2015

See “Selma” Starting This Friday!!!

Hello World,

As a proud resident of Atlanta, the birthplace of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I will be among the millions, hopefully, that will flood movie theaters this weekend to see “Selma,” the movie about the history-changing marches that Dr. King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, which will be screened nationwide starting this Friday!!!

Actually, Atlanta was one of four cities (New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.) in which the movie opened on Christmas Day. As I was in Memphis on Christmas Day, I ended up seeing “Annie” (wholesome and entertaining) over the Christmas holidays with my family so I have not seen “Selma” yet. But my friends who have seen it, praised it, saying, “I cannot express how good this movie was. Please go see it when you get a chance,” “I saw it. I was in tears. I sat next to an older gentleman who was actually on the bridge on Bloody Sunday,” and “I saw it opening day. It’s heartbreaking and redemptive.”

Below are a couple of interesting articles about “Selma” screenings in other cities….

“‘Selma’ Movie Highlighted By Chattanooga March to Special Screening.”

“Bentley, Montgomery Residents Take In ‘Selma” at Premiere in Alabama Capital Where March Forged Changes.”

Also, I interviewed Dr. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Dr. King and CEO of The King Center for the Superwomen Issue of “Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine” in March 2014. In addition, I interviewed Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. King and daughter of his King’s younger brother Rev. A.D. King in my blog post “Let Freedom Ring: Dr. Alveda King Remembers Her Uncle Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

And below is a trailer of “Selma.”

See y’all at the movies!

Any thoughts?

Posted on Monday, January 20, 2014

Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church….NEW BOOK ALERT!

Hello World,

TODAY is the official Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday! I hope wherever you are – whether at home or work or serving your community, I hope you pause to remember the dream of Dr. King and how he inspired the nation to come together in equality and peace…

One of my friends, Edward Gilbreath, who is an award-winning journalist and author, and the executive director of communications for the Evangelical Covenant Church, wrote “Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church” a new book about Dr. King. Below is an interview with Gilbreath about his latest book.

Countless books and articles have been written about Martin Luther King Jr. over the years. What inspired you to share another perspective on King in “Birmingham Revolution?”

Edward Gilbreath: There’s a multitude of books about King and the civil rights movement, but I felt compelled to tell the story from the perspective of an African American evangelical who was born a year after Dr. King’s death. Many people from my generation and younger don’t always have a full picture of who King really was—his courage, his radicalism, his faith, his humanity. I wanted to shed light on these aspects of King and, above all, show the church that everything he did was driven by his Christian faith and values. I also think the evangelical community—especially the white evangelical community—has had an uneasy relationship with Dr. King over the years. They’ve wrestled with embracing his vision of racial and social justice but have struggled with accepting his progressive theology. And at times, they’ve used questions about his theology as an excuse for dismissing him altogether.

I want to show that King’s vision was actually more in tune with a complete understanding of the Christian gospel. That despite his failings as a flawed human being, he was operating out of a God-inspired, prophetic Christian vision of justice and reconciliation. Many evangelicals are just now catching up to what King was articulating fifty years ago. I hope Birmingham Revolution can be an entry way for many evangelicals to discover King anew.

What was significant about Birmingham as a stage for the civil rights movement?

Edward: In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the most notorious strongholds of segregation and white supremacy in the South. It was a place described by King as “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.” Not only were the public institutions, such as libraries, segregated but it was so severe that even books that contained photos of black rabbits and white rabbits together were banned from the library shelves. It was a city where bullets, bombs and burning crosses served as constant deterrents to blacks who aspired to anything greater than their assigned station of inequality.

There, in April 1963, King and his movement of nonviolent protesters staged a campaign that would transform America. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a fiery Baptist preacher in Birmingham, had implored King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference associates to come to Birmingham and help the city’s black community confront segregation. He told them, “I assure you, if you come to Birmingham, we will not only gain prestige but really shake the country.”

He knew that if the movement could change things in Birmingham, it would reverberate throughout the nation.

How is “Birmingham Revolution” different than your mini ebook, “Remembering Birmingham?”

Edward: “Remembering Birmingham” focuses on the events of Birmingham in April 1963 while “Birmingham Revolution” takes a more extensive survey of King’s life, both before and after Birmingham. It’s a dynamic story, replete with action, drama and compelling ideas. I believe the Birmingham campaign was the touchstone for all that came before and all that would follow in King’s brief but remarkable thirty-nine years of life and ministry, and Birmingham Revolution will help readers understand why.

What was the significance of King’s “Letter from Birmingham”?

Edward: The Birmingham campaign started out slowly, but after King was arrested on Good Friday for his movement’s public demonstration on the streets of Birmingham, things began to change. While in solitary confinement, he was shown a newspaper op-ed column by eight moderate clergymen in Birmingham. While they supported civil rights for blacks, they felt King and his movement were going about it all wrong. They implored him to wait for the laws to take effect. But King believed the black community had waited long enough, they needed to take a stand and stir the conscience of Birmingham and of the nation.

His response to the op-ed was a passionate letter that spelled out the reasons why the movement couldn’t wait and pointed out the differences between just and unjust laws. He wrote the letter on the margins of the newspaper, on scraps of any paper he could gather, and when he ran out, he reportedly wrote on the toilet paper in his cell. After its publication weeks later, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would become one of the most lucid and convincing arguments for social justice and civil rights that we’ve ever had. What’s more, it was rooted in the theology and principles of the Christian gospel.

Why do you think King was more a “prophet” of social justice?

Edward: It’s easy to want to write Dr. King off as just a leader who gave a good speech. But in doing that, we risk missing the fact that he was vehemently disliked in his day and that as time went on he was becoming increasingly angry and impatient with the pace of change in the nation. Late in his life he wrote that, “Whites are not putting in a mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance.”

While he rejected the militancy of the Black Power movement, he understood the roots of its members’ discontent. As a Christian minister and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, King also felt compelled to speak out against the Vietnam conflict. This also served to land him on some of America’s “most hated” lists. In all these cases, he was speaking out as a prophet of social justice. But that’s typically not the King that we choose to focus on today.

What do you hope readers take away from “Birmingham Revolution?”

Edward: I want people to discover the full humanity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to move beyond viewing him as this gentle “I Have a Dream” character to seeing him as the prophetic and often radical Christian visionary that he was. I want people to discover and rediscover Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a message encompassing his holistic vision of the gospel lived out in everyday life. I want people to understand that the civil rights movement was indeed a Christian movement, birthed in the church by a grass-roots movement of ordinary men, women and youth who relied on the Holy Spirit and a gospel-inspired vision to rise to the challenge of confronting the social injustice in their daily lives.

I want my Christian readers to understand that Dr. King’s message continues to have relevance for the church today for our response to issues such as immigration reform, the public education crisis, inequalities in our criminal justice system or racial reconciliation. We are called to live out the truth of the gospel both as a call to personal salvation and social justice.